SYNO Chapter 14

Her hazel eyes darted around.

“This is strange. The loading isn’t finishing. It should have been transferred by now.”

“What?”

Pienne strode over to Sirius’ side and looked at the monitor with her.

Indeed, the computer wasn’t responding, as if stuck in a long loading process.

“Did you run the simulations?”

“Of course. This device has already been tested. I’ve copied countless brains with this.”

Sirius rested her chin on her hand, a worried expression on her face.

There was no way the device was malfunctioning. This was the ‘Brain Memory Device’ she had painstakingly created with renowned scientists from the Home Nation.

It was a device that had passed all sorts of side effect and error tests.

As she pondered the problem, her eyes slowly widened. It was because of a casual remark the Commander made beside her.

“It could be a capacity issue.”

“…But this device has the largest memory capacity in the Home Nation…”

Sirius’ attempted rebuttal was abruptly cut short in her throat.

Could it be that Ssangryeong’s mind contained so much information that even the vast memory capacity of the Home Nation’s most advanced machine couldn’t handle it?

The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.

Sirius grimaced and then laughed.

“It seems the rumors were true. About Ssangryeong’s extraordinary memory, the one that remembers everything it’s seen once.”

She hadn’t really believed such a person could exist. She herself was considered a genius among the brilliant minds of the Home Nation, but even she couldn’t remember everything she saw.

She had never met anyone who could.

Moreover, Ssangryeong was a man who ran a ‘Name Detective Agency.’ How much information about countless people must he have seen, heard, and memorized?

“Wow.”

Sirius gasped. The monitor, which had been frozen during the loading process, suddenly went blank.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, fizz!

The device on Ssangryeong’s head emitted a loud warning sound, as if about to explode, and then let out a weak puff of smoke.

The ‘Brain Memory Device,’ meticulously crafted with the government’s massive funding, was broken.

“…What the…”

Sirius, flustered for once, looked down at Ssangryeong. He was smiling in his sleep, as if having a pleasant dream.

Sirius glanced at the Commander, trying to gauge his reaction.

The Commander wasn’t smiling at all.

“This is troublesome.”

He muttered in a low voice, his eyes gleaming with a sharp light.

“What am I going to do with this bastard?”

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

Ssangryeong drifted in and out of light sleep, waking up dozens of times. Every time he would shake his head, telling himself to wake up, he would be pulled back into a terrible nightmare.

When he finally regained consciousness, he was confined in an interrogation room that resembled a solitary cell.

“Fucking… damn it…”

Ssangryeong opened his eyes blearily and leaned his head back.

‘What… happened?’

Naturally, he had no memory of what happened while he was asleep.

His last memory was of biting his tongue and enduring the pain until he finally passed out in front of Dr. Sirius Whistler and Pienne.

‘Did they drug me with something?’

Geometric patterns of light flashed before his eyes, like a drug-induced hallucination. He felt nauseous, his mood swinging wildly between despair and euphoria.

This was definitely the work of Dr. Sirius Whistler’s inventions.

“Haa…”

He couldn’t control his facial muscles properly. He wasn’t sure if it was saliva or blood pooling in his mouth, but he spat it out anyway.

He slowly opened his golden eyes and examined his body.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, his limbs were intact. There were a few bruises from falling, but no signs of torture.

‘Then what did they do while I was unconscious?’

Ssangryeong frowned deeply.

The uncertainty made him even more anxious. He had no idea what Sirius Whistler might have done to him.

As his amber eyes scanned the interrogation room,

“Are you awake?”

He saw a man who seemed to have been waiting for him to wake up.

If it had been Commander Pienne, he would have hurled insults, but unfortunately, such a high-value target wouldn’t be here.

“No more walks for the time being.”

It was the official who occasionally took him for walks.

Ssangryeong chuckled dryly.

It seemed even the short walks, which they had been taking him on regularly like dog training, designed to keep him sane, had been revoked.

Were they trying to suffocate him to death in this cramped space?

“That’s what I came to tell you.”

The official, who should have left after delivering the message, stood rooted to the spot by the door, as if he had something more to say.

Ssangryeong raised an eyebrow. He wanted to tell the man to speak up and get lost, but he didn’t want to make a spectacle of himself with his stiff facial muscles.

“Meals will be served twice a day, at 11 AM and 6 PM.”

While making pointless small talk, the official pointedly gestured downwards with his eyes. Ssangryeong’s gaze followed involuntarily.

‘That’s…’

The official was pointing at his own shoes. o be precise, he was slightly lifting the sole of his shoe to show him something.

Ssangryeong’s eyes wavered.

A dirty piece of paper was stuck to the sole.

[3 days from now, at midnight. I’ll come get you, Ryeong.]

The short message was written in a code used only within the organization.

‘Lucas…’

The only person who called him by that nauseatingly affectionate nickname, “Ryeong,” was Lucas.

The fact that he mentioned “three days from now” instead of a specific date like the 29th or 30th was likely Lucas’ consideration.

He must have assumed Ssangryeong had lost track of time while being confined.

Ssangryeong’s eyes darkened.

‘Is he kidding me? Does he think I’ll be grateful?’

It was Lucas who put him in that dangerous drug deal in the first place. And he ended up being caught in a trap and dragged here. It was bad enough that he had been caught while living in hiding, but he’d also discovered that Lucas’s identity was a lie.

He wasn’t the boss of an organization in the Dependent Nation, but a Brigadier General from the Home Nation.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

He finally felt his mind finally clearing.

Ssangryeong looked at the official in front of him and chuckled. It seemed the official, whom he thought was just taking him for walks, turned out to be Lucas’ spy.

Ssangryeong casually tilted his stiff neck and glanced at the location of the CCTV camera in the corner of the interrogation room.

‘So that’s why.’

He finally understood the official’s strange behavior.

The spot where the official had shown him the sole of his shoe was precisely in the blind spot created by the line of sight between himself, tied to the chair, and the CCTV.

The CCTV camera, blinking with a red light, was undoubtedly recording everything, including audio.

There was no such thing as respect for human rights in this place.

Perhaps there might even be someone on the other side recording everything in real time.

“That was it?”

“…….”

Ssangryeong grinned at the official.

The official’s expression stiffened slightly.

He seemed afraid that Ssangryeong would expose him as a spy.

‘Well, if I did, the Commander would shoot him on the spot.’

But Ssangryeong simply smiled and relaxed. He wouldn’t expose the spy in front of the CCTV camera.

‘Why should I? Who would benefit from that?’

Lucas was now practically his enemy, but so was Pienne. He wouldn’t do anything to benefit either of them out of spite.

There was no reason to expose a well-hidden spy.

‘Lucas said he’d come for me in three days.’

He would probably need that time. The Dependent Nation firmly was under Pienne’s control. Lucas, who was here as a guest, would face limitations in his actions.

‘What a joke.’

Ssangryeong scoffed.

Unfortunately, he had no desire to be rescued by a traitor. He would escape from this damn government building before then.

‘But just in case, I’ll keep it as a last resort.’

Having reached that conclusion, Ssangryeong gestured towards the door with his chin.

“Aren’t you done talking?”

He gave the official a bright, insincere smile.

“You can go now.”

The official stared intently at Ssangryeong. His persistent gaze seemed to say, if you want to escape, keep your mouth shut.

Ssangryeong shrugged mischievously.

“…I’ll see you on my next walk, then.”

The official opened the steel door and left the interrogation room. His careful gait, designed to conceal the message on the sole of his shoe, was quite impressive.

“Haa, hmm.”

Creak, creak.

Left alone, Ssangryeong rocked back and forth in the restrained chair, and fell into deep thought.

‘I need to get out of here.’

He had always had that thought, but now that he knew that not only Commander Pienne but also Dr. Sirius Whistler was in this government building, he didn’t want to stay a minute longer.

‘Isn’t there a better way?’

If he failed to escape within three days, he would have no choice but to accept Lucas’ help.

Ssangryeong fumbled with the ropes binding him. Judging by the knots, it seemed like he could untie them if he tried hard enough.

‘The problem is, escaping this interrogation room is impossible.’

He couldn’t open the door from the inside unless the officials opened it for him. If he tried to force it open, he might trigger a high-voltage current.

Just as Ssangryeong groaned, running out of ideas,

“Special investigation time.”

The steel door, which had been tightly shut, opened once more.

Ssangryeong looked up, his gaze peering through his messy black hair.

‘Special… investigation time?’